She just lets the 4 year old lift up her shirt in any situation. We visited last weekend we were watching a movie and the 4 year old just came over and started sucking. I went outside to laugh and be grossed out. What do you think? If we lived in a poor country where there isn't much food, that would be acceptable, but in our culture, I think that is completely inappropriate. Personally, I don't care how long someone breastfeeds their child, that's their own business. What does bother me though is when the child just comes over, lifts up the shirt, and starts sucking. There should be some discreetness, and consideration for the people around. I know someone like this, and it always makes my husband and I uncomfortable when the child comes over to mom in front of everyone, says "I want booby" and just lifts up moms shirt in front of everyone. And don't think I feel like this because I don't have kids, I breastfed my children myself, just as privately and discreetly as the situation would allow me. I completely agree with Mystic.........
a human drinking HUMAN milk is "gross," but drinking milk from a cow makes perfect sense??
Yeah, it is unusual for a four-year old in this culture to be nursing, but I challenge anyone on here to find some credible piece of research that states that it is psychologically or physically damaging. Because the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics don't put an age limit on breastfeeding, so I would be very curious to know what qualifies the numerous Yahoo residents here to make a determination that there is something wrong with it.
And quite frankly, the fact that some people here find it gross, as if there is some sexual issue involved, is totally offensive. It is one thing to perceive a four-year old nursing as being too old to nurse, but another thing completely to perceive it as gross in a sexual kind of way.
ETA....And as far as tooth decay coming from breastmilk, I would like to see the evidence to support that. Breastmilk doesn't pool in a baby or child's mouth - if they aren't sucking, nothing comes out. Unlike a bottle. And because of the way the nipple is positioned in the mouth, it actually doesn't really hit the teeth at all. Its' perfectly normal for a 4yo to still be nursing. It's not common, but then again, how can we expect it to be common when breastfeeding itself is not common. We forcibly wean once they get teeth or can talk or "ask for it". How is any of that related to readiness to wean.
As for walking out of the room to laugh at your cousin and be grossed out? That's not normal adult behaviour. i can kinda relate to that. My step mom ( at the time just dads gf) was breast feeding her daughter who was 3 at the time. Well doctor told her to stop it cause it was not good for either of them... since then the little girl has had to have certain stuff done to her teeth cause breast milk actually causes decay. So my little step sister had caps put on some teeth others pulled and four perment teeth that came threw rotten already cause of the breast milk. so maybe you need to do a little research and show her that she in not helping th 4yr old at all. !!! There is nothing wrong with that! It's called tandem nursing, and also allowing self-weaning. That is very healthy physically and emotionally!!
I think you should do some research on the topic before you spout off about how gross it is! Mystic provided some great links.
Besides, this is your FAMILY you're talking about! And it was her own home! What is your problem?! You are hilarious! "laugh and be grossed out." I'm not grossed out, but yeah, I would probably laugh too. I don't know, a 4 year old should be getting the milk from a cup if the mother is really a breastfeeding advocate, but that's just my opinion. I'm still laughing . . . It amazes me how completely immature people can be-just like YOU. Breastmilk is what babies are SUPPOSED to drink-not milk from COWS. If you are offended by her doing that IN HER OWN HOME, leave! Why the hell would anyone try to be discreet in their own house. You need to educate yourself, and GROW UP. Eww are you serious? 4 years old??? Thats gross and soooo unhealthy psychologically for that child. No,I don't think it is right 4 year old should have been weened long time ago.My cousin is a 1.5 years old and breastfeeding and her Mum is concerned that she is too old to be breastfed. eh...I don't really think that it's appropriate...thats just my opinnion I think 4 is WAY too old.. No I Think Its Weird To Still Be Breastfeeding A 4 Year Old :S
Especially When She Just Lets Him Breastfeed In Front Of Other People, That Just Freaks Me Out. Eugh. wow that is really freaky! I would have done the same thing you did...4 is a little to old to be doing that. hell no 4 da 4 yr old i find it weird. cant laugh, im just grossed out. I am totally for breastfeeding, but when they can verbally (and clearly) request your breast, I think that's gross! I think that 12-18 months is long enough. of course that's not appropriate
she should be at the age of using a normal cup and she's still breat feeding?!
if you have teeth you shouldn't be breatfeeding that's just gross and plain wierd i think you're imature that's waht i think. in the western society it's completely normal and accepted to breastfeed your child until they are selfweaned. in fact, that's teh wworld wide AVERAGE for weaning. what is so gross is that us americans sexualize after a year or so and dont realize that it IS healthy and that's what our bodies were meant to do. cave people diddnt aheva set date. it's still healthier than cow's milk no matter what. BTW it's called tandum nursing wheen you do multiple children.
http://www.kellymom.com/bf/bfextended/eb...
Humans weren't ever ,eant to drink cow's milk. instead they were designed to self wean just like any other animal and never drink milk again. i find it gross that everyone thinks squeezing milk from a cow's breast isn't but drinking human milk meant for humans IS? People are jsut imature these days and VERY uneducated. im sitll nursing my 15 month old and all of our dodctors are very pround , happy, and surprised as ir's not every day that you see a 21 year old american girl still nursing. the World Health Organization reccomends until at least 2 years old or mutually desired. to laugh is completely imature grow up please and tehn enter society
to those bone head above. studies prove that children who are breastfed until self weaned tend to deal better with people, are less likely to have things like ADHD ADD, and other psychological disorders and things like that. those children also tend to have better relationships with their parents and other people than children who are not. they also tend to be thinner and healthier. so until youa re truly educated on teh subject i think you should get your facts straight. i admit i use to think the same way until i actually got my head out of my azz and read something.BTW even the AMERICAN academy of pediatrics reccomend breastfeeding for a MINIMUM of one year. NOT a maximum
"i can kinda relate to that. My step mom ( at the time just dads gf) was breast feeding her daughter who was 3 at the time. Well doctor told her to stop it cause it was not good for either of them... since then the little girl has had to have certain stuff done to her teeth cause breast milk actually causes decay. So my little step sister had caps put on some teeth others pulled and four perment teeth that came threw rotten already cause of the breast milk. so maybe you need to do a little research and show her that she in not helping th 4yr old at all. !!!
38 minutes ago "
well you had one really uneducated doctor that needsd to go back to medd school. andd isn't up to date on his info. breastmilk doesnt cause tooth decay, it actually has things to prevent it and YOU need to do a little research
i have a neighbor who was breastfeeding ehr 3 year old and her 16 month old. her oldedst self weaned and has perrfect teeth- that doesnt happen if you brush your child's teeth Oh but the milk from a thousand cows that's "normal".
http://www.kathydettwyler.org/detwean.ht...
It is meaningless, statistically, to speak of an average age of weaning worldwide, as so many children never nurse at all, or their mothers give up in the first few days, or at six weeks when they go back to work. It is true that there are still many societies in the world where children are routinely breastfed until the age of four or five years or older, and even in the United States, some children are nursed for this long and longer. In societies where children are allowed to nurse "as long as they want" they usually self-wean, with no arguments or emotional trauma, between 3 and 4 years of age. This interest also stemmed from the realization that other animals have "natural" ages of weaning, around 8 weeks for dogs, 8-12 months for horses, etc. Presumably these animals don't have cultural beliefs about when it would be appropriate.
Some of the results are as follows:
1. In a group of 21 species of non-human primates (monkeys and apes) studied by Holly Smith, she found that the offspring were weaned at the same time they were getting their first permanent molars. In humans, that would be: 5.5-6.0 years.
2. It has been common for pediatricians to claim that length of gestation is approximately equal to length of nursing in many species, suggesting a weaning age of 9 months for humans. However, this relationship turns out to be affected by how large the adult animals are -- the larger the adults, the longer the length of breastfeeding relative to gestation. For chimpanzees and gorillas, the two primates closest in size to humans and also the most closely genetically related, the relationship is 6 to 1. That is to say, they nurse their offspring for SIX times the length of gestation (actually 6.1 for chimps and 6.4 for gorillas, with humans mid-way in size between these two). In humans, that would be: 4.5 years of nursing (six times the 9 months of gestation).
3. It has been common for pediatricians to claim that most mammals wean their offspring when they have tripled their birth weight, suggesting a weaning age of 1 year in humans. Again though, this is affected by body weight, with larger mammals nursing their offspring until they have quadrupled their birth weight. In humans, quadrupling of birth weight occurs between 2.5 and 3.5 years, usually.
4. One study of primates showed that the offspring were weaned when they had reached about 1/3 their adult weight. This happens in humans at about 5-7 years.
5. A comparison of weaning age and sexual maturity in non-human primates suggests a weaning age of 6-7 for humans (about half-way to reproductive maturity).
6. Studies have shown that a child's immune system doesn't completely mature until about 6 years of age, and it is well established that breast milk helps develop the immune system and augment it with maternal antibodies as long as breast milk is produced (up to two years, no studies have been done on breast milk composition after two years post partum).
And on and on. The minimum predicted age for a natural age of weaning in humans is 2.5 years, with a maximum of 7.0 years.
In terms of the benefits of extended breastfeeding, there have been a number of studies comparing breastfed and bottlefed babies in terms of the frequency of various diseases, and also IQ achievement. In every case, the breastfed babies had lower risk of disease and higher IQs than the bottle-fed babies. In those studies that divided breastfed babies into categories based on length of breastfeeding, the babies breastfed the longest did better in terms of both lower disease and higher IQ. In other words, if the categories were 0-6 months of breastfeeding, 6-12 months, 12-18 months and 18-24+ months, then the 18-24+ month babies did the best, and the 12-18 month babies did the next best, and the 6-12 months babies did the next best, and the 0-6 months babies did the worst of the breastfed groups, but still much better than the bottlefeeding group. This has been shown for gastrointestinal illness, upper respiratory illness, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, heart disease, and on and on and on. Likewise, the babies nursed the longest scored the highest on the IQ tests. One important point to notice is that none of these studies looked at children who had nursed longer than 2 years. Anyone 18-24 month or longer was lumped into big category. Presumably, the benefits continue to accrue, as your body doesn't *know* that the baby has bad a birth day and suddenly start producing nutritionally and immunologically worthless milk.
However, no one has yet proved, either way, that the benefits of breastfeeding either continue or stop at two years of age, because the appropriate studies have not been done. The trend during the first two years is clearly for continuing benefits the longer you nurse. Clearly the phenomenon of dimishing returns is at work here -- the first six months of breastfeeding are clearly much more important in terms of the baby's nutrition and immunological development than the six months from 3.5 to 4.0 years. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't continue to provide breast milk if your baby wants and you don't mind. It would be like saying, "Well Mabel, we don't get very much income from that oil well anymore. Used to get $56 a month in royalties, now we're lucky if we get $25 a year. Guess we should tell that oil company just to keep their durn money." And Mabel says, in return "Good grief, Clyde, don't be ridiculous. That check still buys $25 worth of food. Where has your mind gone to now?"
Clearly, babies born in the U.S. don't have to contend with all the diseases and parasites and contaminated water that babies in Third World countries do. We have more supplementary foods that we can generally trust to be safe and clean. We can get our children immunized, and get them antibiotics for infections when necessary. The fact that we *can* does not mean that breastfeeding is unimportant. Breastfed babies still have the "edge" over bottlefed babies, even in a squeaky clean environment with wonderful medical care. They get sick less often, they are smarter, they are happier. Another important consideration for the older child is that they are able to maintain their emotional attachment to a person, rather than being forced to switch to an inanimate object such as a teddy bear or blanket. I think this sets the stage for a life of people-orientation, rather than materialism, and I think that is a good thing. I also can't imagine living through the toddler years without that close loving connection to a child going through enormous changes, some of which are very frustrating to the child. I could go on forever, but will stop here.
http://www.kellymom.com/bf/bfextended/eb...
Breastfeeding benefits toddlers and young children...
nutritionally, immunilogically and psychologically.
* Nursing toddlers benefit NUTRITIONALLY
* Nursing toddlers are SICK LESS OFTEN
* Nursing toddlers have FEWER ALLERGIES
* Nursing toddlers are SMART
* Nursing toddlers are WELL ADJUSTED SOCIALLY
* Nursing a toddler is NORMAL
* MOTHERS also benefit from nursing past infancy
* Additional Resources
Nursing toddlers benefit NUTRITIONALLY
* Although there has been little research done on children who breastfeed beyond the age of two, the available information indicates that breastfeeding continues to be a valuable source of nutrition and disease protection for as long as breastfeeding continues.
* "Human milk expressed by mothers who have been lactating for >1 year has significantly increased fat and energy contents, compared with milk expressed by women who have been lactating for shorter periods. During prolonged lactation, the fat energy contribution of breast milk to the infant diet might be significant."
-- Mandel 2005
* "Breast milk continues to provide substantial amounts of key nutrients well beyond the first year of life, especially protein, fat, and most vitamins."
-- Dewey 2001
* In the second year (12-23 months), 448 mL of breastmilk provides:
o 29% of energy requirements
o 43% of protein requirements
o 36% of calcium requirements
o 75% of vitamin A requirements
o 76% of folate requirements
o 94% of vitamin B12 requirements
o 60% of vitamin C requirements
-- Dewey 2001
* Studies done in rural Bangladesh have shown that breastmilk continues to be an important source of vitamin A in the second and third year of life.
-- Persson 1998
* It's not uncommon for weaning to be recommended for toddlers who are eating few solids. However, this recommendation is not supported by research. According to Sally Kneidel in "Nursing Beyond One Year" (New Beginnings, Vol. 6 No. 4, July-August 1990, pp. 99-103.):
Some doctors may feel that nursing will interfere with a child's appetite for other foods. Yet there has been no documentation that nursing children are more likely than weaned children to refuse supplementary foods. In fact, most researchers in Third World countries, where a malnourished toddler's appetite may be of critical importance, recommend continued nursing for even the severely malnourished (Briend et al, 1988; Rhode, 1988; Shattock and Stephens, 1975; Whitehead, 1985). Most suggest helping the malnourished older nursing child not by weaning but by supplementing the mother's diet to improve the nutritional quality of her milk (Ahn and MacLean. 1980; Jelliffe and Jelliffe, 1978) and by offering the child more varied and more palatable foods to improve his or her appetite (Rohde, 1988; Tangerm thats how some people do it. at least its not in public with a 4 year old, its her own home.
But, she should start weening him very soon though, its almost time for preschool! |
